The Senate’s effective rejection of President Barack Obama’s post-Newtown gun control bill robs the Democratic Party of an important tool for trying to regain a majority in the House in November 2014.

“Are they serious?” a visibly angry Obama demanded of opponents of the Toomey/Manchin Senate bill. In a late-afternoon announcement outside the White House, the president added that if Congress continues not to pass a gun control bill, “the answer will have to come from the voters.”

But without a Senate bill, there’s little chance that vulnerable GOP House members in suburban swing-districts will face the unpleasant choice of either recording a public vote against what Obama repeatedly describes as “common-sense measures to reduce gun violence and save lives” or voting against gun rights supported by the National Rifle Association and many Americans.

Guess he just didn’t take what happened in Boston quite so personally. Maybe he’d pretend to care if a Republican told him not to.